Cash-strapped students turn junk into cool jazz

Friday, November 16, 2012 - 01:35

Nov. 16 - A group of financially-challenged Polish students aren't letting their lack of money interfere with their musical ambitions. Instead, they are applying their initiative and making musical instruments out of objects they find in scrap heaps or on the street. They call themselves the Recycling Band. Rob Muir reports.

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Dominic Stankiewics's drum kit is made of old paint buckets, bicycle chains and saucepans.
Kamil Kedzierski's guitar was once a water container.
The musicians are students, part of a group called the Recycling Band.
SOUNDBITE) KAMIL KEDZIERSKI, BOTTLE GUITARIST, THE RECYCLING BAND, SAYING:
"Necessity is the mother of invention. A friend and I wanted to play bass instruments. Before, we used to play on electric guitars and because we are students our budget is limited, so we decided to make our own instruments."
And in the process, they've become musical advocates for recycling.
A trumpet made from hosepipe and a funnel. Guitar pegs fashioned from eye hooks and screws with electronics controlled via plastic bottle caps.
Maciej Pierzynka is a metallurgy student and friend of the band.
(SOUNDBITE) MACIEJ PIERZYNKA, INSTRUMENT MAKER, SAYING:
"We mainly collect things that catch our eye. At the beginning, that was mainly water containers for making the guitar bodies, or a bench plank. These were parts that we found, I have to admit, somewhere near a trash bin - or some of our university friends would give us old guitar strings or a pot which we used for the percussion."
And now the Recycling Band is taking its music and message all over Europe, letting audiences know that what may seem like useless junk, could in fact, become musical gold.